USC Annenberg Board of Councilors member Frederick J. Ryan, Jr. was recently named the new publisher of The Washington Post.

According to a story from The Washington Post, Ryan has had his eye on the position since earlier this year. After stepping down as President of Allbritton Communications and CEO of Politico, which he co-founded in 2007, he was asked by Jean Case, a philanthropist and the wife of AOL founder Steve Case, what he wanted to do next, to which he allegedly replied: “I want to be publisher of The Washington Post.”

Soon after, Ryan was introduced to Washington Post owner and Amazon.com founder Jeffrey Bezos — who gave Ryan the job earlier this month — replacing publisher Katharine Weymouth. Following Ryan's appointment, Bezos said: “I welcome Fred and thank him for agreeing to become The Post’s next Publisher and CEO. I know he’s excited to meet the team and roll up his sleeves.”

Ryan — who will lead the paper starting Oct. 1 — said in an interview, "the primary job of the publisher is to support the newsroom and to lead a news organization forward with a shared sense of mission, innovation — to, in this case, encourage forward thinking.”

He added that, under the leadership of Bezos, The Post "is better positioned than any other media organization because it’s got a mandate to innovate, to experiment and to do it for the long term."

Ryan graduated Magna Cum Laude from USC in 1977 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Speech Communication. In 1980, he received a Juris Doctorate from the USC Law Center. He was also an official in the Reagan Administration. He is the Chairman of the White House Historical Association and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation, as well as the Co-Chair of the National Archives Advisory Committee on Presidential Libraries.

USC Annenberg’s Board of Councilors members also includes Jarl Mohn, who was named CEO and President of NPR earlier this year, Norman Lear, and Dean Earnest J. Wilson III.

“USC Annenberg’s reach, reputation, and the respect we receive, is international,” Wilson said. “These new, powerful positions for Fred Ryan and Jarl Mohn are certainly no surprise to those of us in the greater Annenberg diaspora.”

Read more on Ryan here.